70 percent of youth cohorts have left the regional periphery for good after graduating from school, and there was no significant return to the demographically depleted periphery in the young working ages… We can only imagine the future of the population where just 30 percent of the youth are willing to stay. The demographic development of hinterland doesn’t seem to be sustainable.

Not only will the hinterland not be developed, but what is already developed will be abandoned. And it is not only rapid youth out-migration that is causing depopulation of ethnic Russians from the periphery. Older Russians are also being forced out as their proportions of regional populations declines, leading to a “tipping point” phenomenon.

Russian Flight is Driving Ethnic Russians from the Periphery Toward the Centre

Across large parts of the former USSR, Russians are no longer welcome. Relatively low Russian birthrates lead to an increasing imbalance between Russians and non-Russians, leading to a “tipping point” that signals a rapid flight of Russians from the territory.

In many villages and districts, the non-Russians now outnumber the Russians, often significantly, and when that tipping point is reached, Russian flight accelerates and the influx of non-Russians increases as well.

There is a deeper reason for this shift than many may think, Yefimov says. Russians remain focused on the state to take care of them while the non-Russians only need land to make a profit and to live well. Given the weakness of the state, the Russians feel themselves cast adrift; but the non-Russians think that this gives them the space to act as they want. __ Source

Corruption is a Malignant Illness That Prevents Positive Evolution of Nations

Corruption is endemic in the third and emerging worlds, including most of Eurasia and Africa.

Transparency InternationalCorruption Map 2015

The fact that corruption in Russia is as bad as almost anywhere in the third world suggests that Russia has no future as a partner in any advanced world coalition. China, for example, is rapidly outstripping Russia in terms of economy, sci-tech innovation, military strength, and international relations.

“Putin’s Russia is a seriously ill country. The illness is called Putinism. Putin doesn’t manage anything but is simply a primary malignant tumor, one that arose first in the Kremlin thanks to Boris Nikolayevich and the ‘family’ and then thanks to television metasticizing first in Crimea and the Donbass and now throughout all of Russia.”

… “The malignant tumor of Putnism must be removed by surgical means. The alternative is the disappearance from the globe of a country called Russia,” the only other way this cancer can be stopped. __ Source

Russian Decline Irreversible

Under Putin’s years of rule, the combination of dysfunctional action and failure to take productive action have put Russia in an untenable position, where only multiple and radical reversals of course would allow Russia any freedom of movement toward a better world for Russians to work, procreate, and innovate creatively and cooperatively.

Russia has entered a period of prolonged decline that will take many years to reverse even if it could be stopped soon, which is unlikely. The decline is man-made and predates Russian aggression in Ukraine and Western sanctions; it is the aggregation and interaction of a variety of negative systemic trends in Russian society already in existence. Reversing these trends, the experts concluded, will be extremely difficult if not impossible. Russia’s decline is likely permanent.

Vladimir Putin’s rule accelerated and deepened Russia’s decline… Putin’s great luck in the first half of his rule (1999–2008) was the rapid increase in the price of hydrocarbons, Russia’s single significant cash crop. Oil that traded at $12-$14/barrel when Putin ascended to power rose steadily to $147/barrel in May of 2008. For a few years, GDP growth rates of 7% per annum and rising incomes ensued. This reliance on oil and gas exports, which increased from less than 50% of exports in 1999 to 68% today, convinced him that state control of the economy was essential to his ability to hold on to power.

This classic bubble burst when hydrocarbon prices collapsed, empowering all the built-in inefficiencies and pathologies of Putin’s top-down model to come into full play. __ Russia in Decline Summarised by Alex Alexiev

Putin is likely to attempt to cling to power to the bitter end. This means that he will use every means at his disposal — including global thermonuclear war, if allowed by the siloviki — in an attempt to maintain power and relevance for himself at the head of the failing state until the final collapse.

Western Russophiles cannot comprehend this ongoing downfall of Potemkin Russia, just as most political and media analysts in the USA could not comprehend the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency. Everything they think they know, just ain’t so.

Bonus Question: Does the excerpt below describe the state of health care in Africa or in Russia?

One family doctor told me that she once led an instructional seminar for medical students at the University of [XXXXXX]. During the seminar they reviewed several problematic cases, one of which involved a patient who had died due to mistakes made by a doctor. The case was included as a warning to the students to be careful in following established treatment protocols and surgical procedures.

After the seminar, one of the medical students approached the doctor and told her that after reading the case file, she realized that the patient in the case study was actually a close relative of hers. She said that the doctors who treated him told her family he had died of natural causes, and she was very traumatized to find he had actually died from malpractice. The doctor running the seminar sympathized with the student’s grief and anger, but told her it would be better if she kept quiet and made no complaint against the hospital. To do so would be to risk being labeled a political dissident or a counterrevolutionary. The student reluctantly concurred. __ Source

Medical statistics from places such as Russia, Africa, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. are not reliable. State ideology and state security are too important to be compromised by honest reporting.

2 Responses to Russia is Reshaping Itself

Russophiles should read the enlightening new history of Russia from the 1980s through the present, “The Invention of Russia” by Arkady Ostrovsky. It would provide them with the elementary knowledge of how Putin’s Russia came to be. Nothing, of course, can fill the many black holes of ignorance underlying the hero worship of a man such as Putin, but taking the trouble to understand the basic dynamics might save them from the many embarassing mistakes they frequently make.